Flood misery as surging Elbe breaches defenses in Germany

Floods sweep through Central Europe – Trees are submerged in the waters of the Elbe River in Schoenhausen, Germany, on Wednesday, June 12. Heavy rain has left rivers swollen across Central Europe.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – People salvage items from their house, which was flooded by the Danube River, in Dunakeszi, Hungary, on June 12.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A man empties a bucket of water in front of his house in Hohnstorf, Germany, on June 12.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Residents stand in front of a house that was hit by floodwaters from the Danube River in Fischerdorf, Germany, on Tuesday, June 11.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Floodwaters from the Elbe River inundate a yard with a swimming pool near Magdeburg, Germany, on Monday, June 10.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – The embankment at the Pest side of Budapest is flooded on June 10. Emergency services and volunteers worked through the night in Hungary as floodwaters threatened towns and villages.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A man walks in high water from the Elbe River in Meissen, Germany, on Sunday, June 9.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Greenpeace activists walk in floodwaters from the Danube at the Chain Bridge in Budapest on June 9.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Soldiers prepare a makeshift flood barrier on Margareth Island in the Hungarian capital of Budapest on June 9.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A resident wades to a neighbor's house on a flooded street near the swollen Elbe River on Friday, June 7, in Elster, Germany.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A man walks through the mud in the village of Fischerdorf near Deggendorf, southern Germany, on June 7.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Chewbaca sits among groceries and bottles of butane in a rubber raft as his owner pulls him through a flooded street near the swollen Elbe River on June 7.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Members of the emergency services inspect a road washed away by flood water near Loebnitz, eastern Germany, on June 7.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – The Inn, left, and Danube rivers flood parts of the historic city of Passau, Germany, on Thursday, June 6.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Reiner Haseloff, right, premier of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, speak with volunteers about building a sandbag barrier near Lake Goitzsche in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany, on June 6.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Residents and their pets take refuge from the flooding in a shelter in Bitterfield, Germany, on June 6.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Volunteers fill sandbags to protect Dresden, Germany, from rising floodwaters of the Elbe River on June 6.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – The Elbe floods the historic city center of Meissen, Germany, on June 6.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Volunteers stack sandbags as the Saale River overruns parts of Calbe, Germany, on June 6.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Elbe River floodwaters rise over statues across from the Semper Opera House in Dresden, Germany, on June 6.

Floods sweep through Central Europe – German Lifesaving Society workers drive through the flooded area of Deggendorf, Germany, on June 5.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A woman peers out onto the street flooded by the River Danube in Passau, Germany, on June 5.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Submerged cars peak out of the flood in Deggendorf, Germany.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A man walks near a flood protection wall in Bratislavas, Slovakia, on June 5.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A house flooded by the River Danube near Deggendorf, Germany, on June 5.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A woman cleans mud from the footpath in front of her house following flooding along the Inn River in Schaerding, Austria, on Wednesday, June 5. Rising rivers menaced swaths of Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria on Tuesday, as floodwaters inundated historic cities and forced mass evacuations of low-lying areas.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Residents transport sandbags to build a flood wall in a street flooded by the Elbe River in Dresden, Germany, on June 5.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A women crosses a makeshift bridge over flooded streets in Unterloiben, Austria, on Tuesday, June 4.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A cat seeks dry ground after flooding from the Vltava River in Kly, Czech Republic, on June 4.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A resident adds a tarp to a restaurant on June 4, to help prevent damage from rising floodwaters from the nearby Elbe River in Pirna, Germany.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – An aerial view shows the flooded Prague Zoo on June 4 in the Czech Republic.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Volunteers and soldiers stack sandbags on June 4 to strengthen a dam of the rising Saale River on the outskirts in Halle, Germany.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – People canoe in the flooded city of Wehlen, Germany, on June 4.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Some streets are underwater in the old city in Passau, Germany, on Monday, June 3, due to heavy and ongoing rainfall.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Onlookers watch the water rise around houses on the Vltava River in Prague. The Vltava was cresting Tuesday in the Czech capital, but areas downstream still faced rising waters.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Czech soldiers erect metal barriers on the banks of the Vltava River in Prague's Holesovice district.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A traffic sign is surrounded by the flooded Berounka River on the outskirts of Prague on June 3.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Firefighters evacuate local residents in Zeitz, Germany, on June 3 from a street flooded the night before by the nearby Weisse Elster River.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – The swollen Inn River rushes through downtown Passau, Germany, on June 3.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A rescuer navigates through an flooded street in Passau, Germany.

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Czech army personnel build flood barriers on the bank of the flooded Vltava River in Prague. Transportation was severely disrupted in Prague, as well as other parts of Bohemia, according to a spokeswoman for the Czech Fire Department.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Firefighters and helpers evacuate citizens in the flooded city center in Grimma, Germany.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Floodwaters surround a restaurant in Prague on June 3.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Streets in Passau, Germany, were flooded after the River Danube topped a centuries-old record.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A woman wades through a flooded street in Passau, Germany, on June 3.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Evacuees forced to flee the rising floodwaters of the Weisse Elster River sit on mattresses at an evacuation center in a school gymnasium in Zeitz, Germany, on June 3.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Floodwaters cover a road in Prague on June 3.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – Subway escalators stand empty in a train station in Prague on Sunday, June 2.

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Floods sweep through Central Europe – A statue by British sculptor Kaivalya Torpy depicting Indian spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy is partially submerged by the rising waters of the Vltava River on June 2 in downtown Prague.

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Story highlights

The crest on the River Elbe is moving northwest through Germany, now near Wittenberg

Soldiers drop huge sandbags from helicopters after two dikes are breached

Flood preparations are made in Serbia as the Danube River rises

Flooding has affected swaths of central Europe in the past 10 days

Soldiers dropped huge sandbags from army helicopters Tuesday as part of efforts to stem devastating flooding in northern Germany after the swollen Elbe River breached flood defenses.

A sea of muddy brown water has flowed through two broken dikes in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people from their homes.

The situation is stabilizing in the flooded village of Fischbeck, near the town of Stendal, which was left largely submerged after a dike there broke Sunday, officials said.

The flow of water pouring through a gaping breach nearly 50 meters (160 feet) across is now slowing, and water levels have dropped slightly across the state, Saxony-Anhalt Interior Minister Holger Stahlknecht said Tuesday.

An electricity substation was threatened in nearby Sandau, but the situation has now been stabilized, the flood crisis team at the Interior Ministry in Saxony-Anhalt said.

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A dike on the Elbe at Schoenebeck, south of Magdeburg, is secure, but a protective evacuation of homes has been carried out, it said.

The water level around Stendal has dropped about half a meter (20 inches) since its peak Monday morning, said CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller, and should drop another 20 inches in the next 24 to 48 hours. The peak surpassed 8.2 meters (26.9 feet), breaking the 2002 record of 7.68 meters (25.2 feet).

Police shut down the center of Wittenberg on Tuesday, a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited to meet volunteers and see flood prevention efforts for herself.

The crest is occurring around Wittenberg and the water should continue to rise farther to the west around Boizenburg and Hamburg in the coming days, Miller said.

About 4,000 German soldiers have been deployed in Saxony-Anhalt, with some dispatched to drop the huge bags of sand from the air.

Three people died in the state last week in connection with the flooding. Another five deaths have been reported across the country.

Volunteer patrols

Dikes are holding so far in Lower Saxony, northwest of Saxony-Anhalt, as the water level on the Elbe reaches 8 meters (26 feet,) state Interior Ministry spokesman Philipp Wedelich said.

About 8,000 volunteers are patrolling the dikes and aiding flood prevention efforts, he said. The critical areas are Lueneburg and Luechow-Dannenberg, he said.

No deaths have been reported in Lower Saxony.

The surging Elbe River, which last week brought flooding to the state of Saxony, to the south, is making its way northwest toward the North Sea.

The town of Lauenburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, has been evacuated as a precaution as the river is expected to peak there by Thursday as it nears the sea, the European Commission's emergency response center said.

In Saxony, the water levels are falling but 12,000 people are still unable to return to their homes, the state's Interior Ministry said.

Work is still being done to strengthen dikes because they could weaken if the waters recede slowly, it said.

The mighty Danube

Over the past 10 days, floods on the Elbe and other rivers including the Danube have also affected southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

They are the worst since flooding in 2002 devastated the region.

The Czech Republic is now focused on draining the flood waters and cleanup efforts, Czech fire service spokeswoman Nicole Zaoralova said.

Eleven people have died nationwide as a result of the floods, she said. Heavy rain Monday complicated the recovery efforts and caused more flash flooding, she added.

In Austria, river levels are dropping, but the mighty Danube, normally an important transit route for freight and passengers, is still closed to river traffic, the European Commission's emergency response center said.

The crest on the Danube reached a record high in Hungary's capital, Budapest, late Sunday, but the city's flood defenses held and levels there are now dropping.

The river is expected to peak Tuesday in Paks in central Hungary, and a day later in Baja in southern Hungary.

Flood precautions are now under way in Serbia as the Danube starts to rise there, with some evacuations already taking place.

The region's rivers were filled to bursting by torrential rain at the start of the month, after a wet spring left the ground saturated.